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Townsend Productions To Bring Neil Gore’s New Play, We Will Be Free, To The Lantern Theatre.

Fresh from an acclaimed run at this Edinburgh Fringe, Townsend Productions are set to tour Neil Gore’s new play We Will Be Free, a new drama set around the story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, at the Lantern Theatre on the 19th, 20th and 21st September.

Set in 1834, We Will Be Free follows the extraordinary true story of George and Betsy Loveless. He was a Methodist preacher and the leader of the six Dorsetshire farm labourers who were tried, convicted and condemned to harsh transportation by an oppressive Government for having the temerity to swear a secret oath and form a union to fight against a succession of wage cuts inflicted by the local landowner.

Townsend Productions To Bring Neil Gore’s New Play, We Will Be Free, To The Lantern Theatre. full post

(375 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

Dinosaur Jr. Gig Review. East Village Arts Club, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

For Dinosaur Jr. to still come across as a well-kept secret that is keenly guarded by only those who speak of their music and discography in the same reverential terms as you would hear spoken by those who covet the inner workings, some say magic of a comic store is on first glance hard to understand. Not for nothing is the music something this side of stunning, mind blowing and captivating, it growls with the same force as a yard full of tigers who have spotted someone invading their turf. Yet, it seems, it is perhaps the select army, those who really understand how music gets beneath the skin who know that this band is something very special to watch.

Dinosaur Jr. Gig Review. East Village Arts Club, Liverpool. full post

(433 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Del Amitiri Return To Touring For The First Time In 10 Years.

With a cast of original members and even the original crew, Del Amitri return from a ten year sabbatical to wheel out every hit from every era of their lengthy recording career. Justin Currie and Iain Harvie will once again be joined on stage by Andy Alston, Kris Dollimore and Ashley Soan. The tour will also take in Liverpool with a performance at the Empire Theatre on February 2nd.

It’s been 30 years since Del Amitri’s debut single, Sense Sickness, their contribution to all things early 80s and jangly. “The A to Z of Us will take a retrospective sweep of our entire output, from indie art-pop through folk-tinged balladry to hairy Brit-rock chuggery”, says front man Justin Currie.

Del Amitiri Return To Touring For The First Time In 10 Years. full post

(334 words, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)

Cathy Tyson Returns To The Liverpool Stage For Edinburgh Festival Hit Comedy Monkey Bars.

Liverpool Everyman alumnus Cathy Tyson will return to the city’s stage later this autumn in a new comedy at the Playhouse. Cathy will feature in Monkey Bars, a funny and perceptive verbatim show where children’s conversations are re-enacted by adults – playing adults – in adult situations. Chris Goode’s Edinburgh Fringe favourite comes to the Liverpool Playhouse Studio from Tuesday 1st to Saturday 5th October.

A hit with critics and audiences when it premiered in Edinburgh in 2012, earning a Fringe First Award, Monkey Bars is a funny and endlessly surprising verbatim show which offers a revelatory insight into what children are trying to tell us about their lives, and ours, that we don’t always hear.

Cathy Tyson Returns To The Liverpool Stage For Edinburgh Festival Hit Comedy Monkey Bars. full post

(391 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Four Tops And Temptations To Perform At The Echo Arena In 2014 With Some Very Special Guests.

Timeless Motown legends Four Tops and The Temptations will be back in the U.K. in 2014 to relive the R&B and soul classics that delivered Detroit to music history. Special guests joining the bill for these memorable shows will be The Platters and Freda Payne.

American vocal quartet Four Tops are widely considered as one of the main artists to help define the landmark Motown sound in the 1960s. Amongst their biggest hits are I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch) and Reach Out I’ll Be There. The line-up features original founder member Abdul ‘Duke’ Fakir with Lawrence Payton Jr, Lewis McNeir and Spike Deleon.

Four Tops And Temptations To Perform At The Echo Arena In 2014 With Some Very Special Guests. full post

(573 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Cabaret, Theatre Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Will Young, Siobhan Dillon, Lyn Paul, Matt Rawle, Linal Haft, Valerie Cutko, Nicholas Tizzard, Carly Blackburn, Emily Bull, Luke Fetherston, Simon Jaymes, Alessia Lugoboni, Callum Macdonald, Alastair Postlethwaite, Oliver Roll, Alexzandra Sarmiento, Shahla Tarrant, Cydney Uffindell-Phillips.

There are musicals that grace the stage with such spellbinding brilliance that the glitter and sheen never seems to rub off, never falters and certainly never lets the audience come away feeling anything other than wanting to dance all the way home and sing their favourite song with gladness in their heart. Then there are those that are so astonishing because they have made the crowd question everything they know about humanity and the darkness in people’s hearts and in a nation’s deeds. Perhaps it can be argued that only Cabaret manages to do both at the same time.

Cabaret, Theatre Review. Empire Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(601 words, estimated 2:24 mins reading time)

Sammy Hagar, Sammy Hagar & Friends. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

After four decades thrilling fans and audiences alike as one of the great American rock entertainers, Sammy Hagar has recorded new tracks and put a Hagar-like slant on a couple of absolute towering monsters  in which the devotees and aficionados will be knocking themselves out for to have as part of the collection. After great and deserved success with bands such as the enormous fantastic Chickenfoot and the iconic Van Halen, Sammy Hagar & Friends relishes in the man’s ability and undoubted charisma to showcase that even now he is still one of the top draws of rock’s glittering establishment.

Sammy Hagar, Sammy Hagar & Friends. Album Review. full post

(510 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

A Lovely War, Ezra. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Everybody starts somewhere, the great and the good, the seemingly indestructible icons of stage, cinema and music and everyday walk of life. Everybody has a back story, the fledgling beginnings which in time show how, in this case the group of musicians, took themselves on from humble beginnings and with perspiration, dogged determination and age can be sensational. Such is the proposition facing A Lovely War and the quirky, certainly enjoyable E.P. Ezra.

A Lovely War, Ezra. E.P. Review. full post

(338 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)

Jonny Lang, Fight For My Soul. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Some albums jump straight out at you from the opening note and make you sit down in almost startled amazement. In Jonny Lang’s first album for seven years, the tormenting and incredible sound that encapsulates Fight For My Soul, the feeling of bewildered admiration is compounded by thought of time having passed by.

Jonny Lang, Fight For My Soul. Album Review. full post

(410 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Mojo Makers, Wait Till The Morning. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The comparisons that will inevitably follow when Wait Till The Morning, the new album by the superb Mojo Makers, is released or even perhaps unleashed would be a better term with anything that the Midland’s own Led Zeppelin recorded should be disregarded  and put away as early as possible. Not for the reason that many might think, those that believe the genre stopped being of any significance when Led Zeppelin stopped making new music, but for the fact that in Wail Till The Morning is far and away more interesting a caged animal than almost anything the Midland band put together.

Mojo Makers, Wait Till The Morning. Album Review. full post

(402 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)